Kuumba Series

Charlene Gilbert is an independent documentary film and video maker whose award winning film, Homecoming, Sometimes I am haunted by memories of red dirt and clay , premiered nationally on PBS and won the NBPC Prized Pieces Award for Best Documentary. Ms. Gilbert also co-authored, with Quinn Eli, a companion book to the film titled Homecoming: The Story of African American Farmers published by Beacon Press. Her most recent documentary, Children Will Listen , premiered at the 2004 AFI Silverdocs Documentary Festival and had its national primetime PBS broadcast premiere in the fall of 2005.

Her films and videos have been screened in numerous international and national festivals including: The Women in the Director's Chair Festival, the Chicago International Television Festival, FESPACO, the Athens International Film and Video Festival and the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema.

Ms. Gilbert is also the recipient of several awards and fellowships, including the Rockefeller Media Fellowship, Harvard University's Bunting Fellowship, and the Kellogg National Leadership Fellowship award. She is currently working on a documentary project on Juvenile Justice, which she hopes to complete in 2008. Ms. Gilbert resides in Toledo, Ohio where she is a professor in the Women's and Gender Studies department and a Prestige professor of Film at the University of Toledo.

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